Publication Type
Report
Version
Publisher’s Version
Publication Date
6-2015
Abstract
Thai migrants first began trickling into the Chao Phraya river valley from Southern China in the eleventh century. Thai chieftains established petty kingdoms in modern-day Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, initially as tributaries to more established Burmese and Khmer rulers. However, both the diminishing influence of the Khmer Empire and the Mongols’ sacking of the Burmese capital Bagan in 1287 left a political vacuum in mainland Southeast Asia, which was soon filled by Thai kingdoms such as Sukhothai (1238–1463), Chiang Mai (1296–1775), Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and eventually Bangkok (f. 1 782). In the process, the up-and-coming Thai polities supplanted the Khmer Empire as the dominant power on the mainland, but they also largely absorbed cultural cues from the sophisticated Mon and Khmer peoples, including their writing systems, legal codes, art forms, political and administrative structures and the Theravada Buddhist religion.
Keywords
Thailand, History, Culture, Development
Discipline
Asian Studies | Growth and Development | History
Publication
Published
First Page
1
Last Page
17
Publisher
Institute for Societal Leadership
City or Country
Singapore
Embargo Period
1-25-2017
Citation
Institute for Societal Leadership; ELLINGTON, John W.; and CHEN, Serene.
The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges and Opportunities for Growth. (2015). Published. 1-17.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/isl_research/12
Copyright Owner and License
Singapore Management University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
http://isl.smu.edu.sg/CIL